The Roman Traitor Volume Ii Part 30

She had never seen that boy before; yet was there something in his features and expression that seemed familiar to her; that sort of vague resemblance to something well known and accustomed, which leads men to suppose that they must have dreamed of things which mysteriously enough they seem to remember on their first occurrence.

The boy raised his hand joyously, and cried aloud, without any fear of being heard, well knowing that all eyes and ears of the defenders of the place were turned to the side when the fight was raging, "Be of good cheer; you are saved, Julia. Paullus is nigh at hand, but ere he come, _I_ will save you! Be of good courage, watch well these windows, but seem to be observing nothing."

And with the words, he turned away, and was lost to her sight in an instant, among the thickly-set underwood. Ere long, however, she caught a glimpse of him again, mounted upon a beautiful white horse, and gallopping like the wind down the sandy road, which wound through the wooded knolls toward the bridge below.

Again she lost him; and again he glanced upon her sight, for a single second, as he spurred his fleet horse across the single arch of brick, and dashed into the woods on the hither side of the torrent.

Two weary hours pa.s.sed; and the sun was nigh to his setting, and she had seen, heard nothing more. Her heart, sickening with hope deferred, and all her frame trembling with terrible excitement, she had almost begun to doubt, whether the whole appearance of the boy might not have been a mere illusion of her feverish senses, a vain creation of her distempered fancy.

Still, fiercer than before, the battle raged without, and now there was no intermission of the uproar; to which was added the cras.h.i.+ng of the roofs beneath heavy stones, betokening that engines of some kind had been brought up from the host, or constructed on the spot.

At length, however, her close watch was rewarded. A slight stir among the evergreen bushes on the brink of the opposite cliff caught her quick eye, and in another moment the head of a man, not of the boy whom she had seen before, nor yet, as her hope suggested, of her own Paullus, but of an aquiline-nosed clean-shorn Roman soldier, with an intelligent expression and quick eye, was thrust forward.

Perceiving Julia at the window, he drew back for a second; and the boy appeared in his place, and then both showed themselves together, the soldier holding in his hand the bow and arrows of the hunter youth.

"He is a friend," said the boy, "do all that he commands you."

But so fiercely was the battle raging now, that it was his signs, rather than his words, which she comprehended.

The next moment, a gesture of his hand warned her to withdraw from the embrasure; and scarcely had she done so before an arrow whistled from the bow and dropped into the room, having a piece of very slender twine attached to the end of it.

Perceiving the intention at a glance, the quick witted girl detached the string from the shaft without delay, and, throwing the latter out of the window lest it should betray the plan, drew in the twine, until she had some forty yards within the room, when it was checked from the other side, neither the soldier nor the youth showing themselves at all during the operation.

This done, however, the boy again stood forth, and pitched a leaden bullet, such as was used by the slingers of the day, into the window.

Perceiving that the ball was perforated, she secured it in an instant to the end of the clue, which she held in her hand, and, judging that the object of her friends was to establish a communication from their side, cast it back to them with a great effort, having first pa.s.sed the twine around the mullion, by aid of which Crispus had lowered down his messenger.

The soldier caught the bullet, and nodded his approbation with a smile, but again receded into the bushes, suffering the slack of the twine to fall down in an easy curve into the ravine: so that the double communication would scarce have been perceived, even by one looking for it, in the gathering twilight.

The boy's voice once more reached her ears, though his form was concealed among the shrubbery. "Fear nothing, you are safe," he said, "But we can do no more until after midnight, when the moon shall give us light to rescue you. Be tranquil, and farewell."-

Be tranquil!-tranquil, when life or death-honor or infamy-bliss or despair, hung on that feeble twine, scarce thicker than the spider's web!

hung on the chance of every flying second, each one of which was bringing nigher and more nigh, the hoofs of Catiline's atrocious band.

When voice of man can bid the waves be tranquil, while the north-wester is tossing their ruffian tops, and when the billows slumber at his bidding, then may the comforter a.s.say, with some chance of success, to still the throbbings of the human heart, convulsed by such hopes, such terrors, as then were all but maddening the innocent and tranquil heart of Julia.

Tranquil she could not be; but she was calm and self-possessed, and patient.

Hour after hour lagged away; and the night fell black as the pit of Acheron, and still by the glare of pale fires and torches, the lurid light of which she could perceive from her windows, reflected on the heavens, the savage combatants fought on, unwearied, and unsparing.

Once only she went again to that window, wherefrom hung all her hopes; so fearful was she, that Crispus might find her there, and suspect what was in process.

With trembling fingers she felt for the twine, fatal as the thread of destiny should any fell chance sever it; and in its place she found a stout cord, which had been quietly drawn around the mullion, still hanging in a deep double bight, invisible amid the gloom, from side to side of the chasm.

And now, for the first time, she comprehended clearly the means by which her unknown friends proposed to reach her. By hauling on one end of the rope, any light plank or ladder might be drawn over to the hither from the farther bank, and the gorge might so be securely bridged, and safely traversed.

Perceiving this, and fancying that she could distinguish the faint clink of a hammer among the trees beyond the forest knoll, she did indeed become almost tranquil.

She even lay down on her couch, and closed her eyes, and exerted all the power of her mind to be composed and self-possessed, when the moment of her destiny should arrive.

But oh! how day-long did the minutes seem; how more than year-long the hours.

She opened her curtained lids, and lo! what was that faint pale l.u.s.tre, glimmering through the tree-tops on the far mountain's brow?-all glory to Diana, chaste guardian of the chaste and pure! it was the signal of her safety! it was! it was the ever-blessed moon!-

Breathless with joy, she darted to the opening, and slowly, warily creeping athwart the gloomy void, she saw the cords drawn taught, and running stiffly, it is true, and reluctantly, but surely, around the mouldering stone mullion; while from the other side, ghost-like and pale, the skeleton of a light ladder, was advancing to meet her hand as if by magic.

Ten minutes more and she would be free! oh! the strange bliss, the inconceivable rapture of that thought! free from pollution, infamy! free to live happy and unblemished! free to be the beloved, the honored bride of her own Arvina.

Why did she shudder suddenly? why grew she rigid with dilated eyes, and lips apart, like a carved effigy of agonized surprise?-

Hark to that rising sound, more rapid than the rush of the stream, and louder than the wailing of the wind! thick pattering down the rocky gorge!

nearer and nearer, 'till it thunders high above all the tumult of the battle! the furious gallop of approaching horse, the sharp and angry clang of harness!-

Lo! the hot glare, outfacing the pale moonbeam, the fierce crimson blaze of torches gleaming far down the mountain side, a torrent of rus.h.i.+ng fire!

Hark! the wild cheer, "Catiline! Catiline!" to the skies! mixed with the wailing blast of the Roman trumpets, unwillingly retreating from the half-won watchtower!-

"Pull for your lives!" she cried, in accents full of horror and appalling anguish-"Pull! pull! if ye would not see me peris.h.!.+"-

But it was all too late. Amid a storm of tumultuous acclamation, Catiline drew his panting charger up before the barricaded gateway, which had so long resisted the dread onset of the legionaries, and which now instantly flew open to admit him. Waving his hand to his men to pursue the retreating infantry, he sprang down from his horse, uttering but one word in the deep voice of smothered pa.s.sion-"Julia!"-

His armed foot clanged on the pavement, ere the bridge was entirely withdrawn; for they, who manned the ropes, now dragged it back, as vehemently as they had urged forward a moment since.

"Back from the window, Julia!"-cried the voice-"If he perceive the ropes, all is lost! Trust me, we never will forsake you! Meet him! be bold! be daring! but defy him not!"-

Scarce had she time to catch the friendly admonition and act on it, as she did instantly, before the door of the outer room was thrown violently open; and, with his sallow face inflamed and fiery, and his black eye blazing with h.e.l.lish light, Catiline exclaimed, as he strode in hot haste across the threshold,

"At last! at last, I have thee, Julia!"

CHAPTER XVII.

TIDINGS FROM ROME.

Time and the tide wear through the longest day.

SHAKSPEARE.

"At last, I have thee, Julia!"

Mighty indeed was the effort of the mind, which enabled that fair slight girl to bear up with an undaunted lip and serene eye against the presence of that atrocious villain; and hope, never-dying hope, was the spirit which nerved her to that effort.

It was strange, knowing as she did the character of that atrocious and bloodthirsty tyrant, that she should not have given way entirely to feminine despair and terror, or sought by tears and prayers to disarm his purpose.

But her high blood cried out from every vein and artery of her body; and she stood calm and sustained by conscious virtue, even in that extremity of peril; neither tempting a.s.sault by any display of coward weakness, nor provoking it by any show of defiance.